A multi-slot processor uses multiple independent functional units to process operations in parallel. One common example of a multi-slot processor is a very long instruction word (VLIW) processor. A VLIW instruction packages multiple operations into a single instruction. VLIW processors may include a plurality of instruction slots, and each slot may execute one operation of the VLIW instruction. Each slot may have an associated set of functional units, and each functional unit may be pipelined to increase processing speed. In general, only one operation is issued to any given slot at any given time.
Execution of any particular operation of a VLIW instruction may cause an event, such as an interrupt or an exception, in the processor. In response, the processor may invoke an event handler to service the event. Before servicing the event, the VLIW operations executing within the respective slots of the VLIW processor may be terminated. After servicing the event, some of the operations of the VLIW instruction that was terminated may still need to be executed. However, execution of the operation that caused the event may need to be avoided in order to ensure that the same operation does not cause the same event a second time.